Last week, the GSMA announced an initiative to standardise the edge, with Telefónica, KT, China Unicom and Telstra the first to step up to lead the way.

In signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the four telcos the aim will be to test Edge Computing functionality and interconnection capability, as well as verifying the ease and simplicity of a MEC platform for application developers to leverage.

“Together with these Tier 1 operators, we are making available to the industry the means to build and deliver a global telco-based Edge Cloud service, providing the necessary mechanisms that complement current MEC standards to enable the federation of operator’s edge computing platforms,” said Juan Carlos García, SVP Technology and Ecosystem at Telefónica.

“With this, telcos will be able to deliver a universal Edge Computing service that will facilitate application developers and Enterprises the deployment of their services globally through a simple and single interface.”

The aim of the GSMA initiative is to standardise platforms for edge computing, ultimately driving towards interoperability in the telco community. Although standards might not be the most exciting part of the industry, they are critical to ensure smooth progress and also realising the telco rank in the pecking order.

The collaboration will take place over four phases:

Ultimately the aim is to create global consistency, a telco platform without the need to develop custom integrations for each and every market. Such interoperability and consistency is critical to ensure the effective development of a sustainable edge ecosystem. It also provides confidence to customers to deploy applications in any data centre, with policies designed for privacy, security and enhanced performance.

“Through our partnership with Telefonica, Telstra and China Unicom, all from different regions across the world, we set out to explore the most effective way to build a globally federated edge platform and tap into the full potential of telco-based Edge Computing,” said Jongsik Lee, SVP & Head of Infra R&D at KT.

“Leveraging MEC standards and key technologies, we aim to provide a reference model the industry can build on and developers and enterprises can take advantage of.”